


Happens All Too Fast

by aguantare



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Law School, Angst, Fluff, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-16
Updated: 2013-02-18
Packaged: 2017-11-25 16:47:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/641016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aguantare/pseuds/aguantare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis slots into the seat next to Harry, and Liam sinks down in the seat next to Zayn, and Niall doesn’t know why, but all of a sudden he feels left out. Law school AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [strawberryfinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberryfinn/gifts).



> Disclaimer: don't know them don't own them don't sue me
> 
> For the lovely strawberryfinn for being a faithful reader/commenter and a great source of encouragement/inspiration. :)

**1L Year  
August**

“Mr. Horan?”

Niall feels his face flush as he raises his hand, and the bulk of his 50-person section turns to look at him. Of course he would get called on the first day of classes. Of course. 

“Mr. Horan. Can you tell us what’s going on here in Bell Atlantic v. Twombly?”

Niall looks down at his laptop screen, at his notes from the night before, meticulously typed up under the One Note section tab labeled “Civil Procedure.” They look like total gibberish to him now. He takes a deep breath, feels the anticipatory silence pressing in on him from all sides. 

“Yeah. Uhm. In Bell Atlantic…”

He goes through the notes he has written under his “Facts” heading in his case brief, eliminates a few sentences on the fly, elaborates on one or two points that somehow, some way, he remembers from the reading. When he’s done, he looks up at his professor. There’s a short pause, and then he gets a curt nod. The professor launches into his lecture, and Niall tries not to slump over in relief. He’s sure his face is ugly and splotchy with pink and red, the way it always gets when he has to get up and speak in front of a group, but he’s managed to avoid getting criticized or yelled at, and he figures he can chalk that up to a minor victory. 

A piece of notebook paper slides onto his keyboard. He glances down at it.

_Good job!_

For a second he’s not sure if it’s meant to be sarcastic, a subtle barb, one of those infamous law school stabs in the back. His slight frown must give him away though, because a hand sneaks into his vision and stealthily retrieves the paper. Niall glances surreptitiously sideways, sees a head of brown curls bent studiously over the paper, as if intently taking notes. A few seconds later, the paper is back with another line of words below the initial one.

_Not being a dick, I promise. I think I’m going to have to stave off a heart attack when I get called._

Niall bites down a smile, scrawls out a quick _Thanks_ at the bottom of the page and tries to focus his attention back on the lecture again. 

Their professor ends class at 10:30 on the nose, and Niall makes sure to save his notes before closing his laptop and unplugging it. He glances sideways, sees his note-writing neighbor doing the same. 

“Think I’m safe for the rest of the semester?” he asks good-naturedly. His neighbor looks over, and Niall remembers vaguely from their orientation sessions the week before that he’s British and he went to NYU for undergrad, but blanks on his name. 

“Maybe,” his neighbor responds with a half smile, “I’ve heard Carlson isn’t much of a cold-caller, but when he does call you, you’d better have your shit together.”

“Yeah, he doesn’t seem like the type to put up with a lot of BS, does he?” Niall says, watching their professor, in full suit and tie, gather up his things and stride out of the lecture hall. 

“Think I heard he worked for like Latham and Watkins and then the IOC, of all things,” his neighbor responds, “Big time litigation, stuff like that.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Niall says with a nod. He stuffs his Civil Procedure book into his backpack, slides his laptop and charger in next to it and gets to his feet. His neighbor does the same, and when he stands up, he’s a little bit taller than Niall, and he’s lanky, in an almost teenage-esque way, but there’s a certain broadness to his shoulders that belies the roundness in his face. 

“So I uh. Didn’t catch your name,” Niall says as they head towards the door, “I mean. I probably did during orientation, but. I forgot.” His neighbor laughs and sticks out his right hand.

“Harry,” he says as Niall shakes his hand.

“Niall.”

**September**

“Nialllllll.” Harry slumps into his seat next to Niall in their Constitutional Law class room and puts his head in his arms. 

“What’s wrong with you?” Niall asks without looking away from the last-minute notes he’s typing up. 

“Kill me,” Harry mumbles, his voice muffled, “Kill me now.”

“Sorry,” Niall responds, finishing the last sentence of his notes with a flourish and turning to look at Harry, “No can do.” Harry makes a sad little noise into his arms.

“Late night last night?” Niall guesses. Harry nods without sitting up.

“Contracts,” he mumbles, and Niall makes a sympathetic noise. Their Contracts reading was 45 pages last night, and he only got to bed before midnight because he’d managed to get a head start on it over the weekend.

A rustle of clothes and papers behind them, and then a slight, well-dressed brunette all but falls into the chair on the other side of Harry, looks over his slumped shoulders at Niall with a questioning look.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Beast of a Contracts reading last night,” Niall responds, then, as an afterthought, “Hi, by the way.” He gets a smile for that.

“Louiiiiis,” Harry moans, groping out blindly with one hand until he latches on to Louis’ sleeve, “Kill me.”

“I think the ABA might have something to say about that,” Louis responds easily, not shaking him off.

“Bet your poorly socialized Section D section mates wouldn’t mind,” Harry grumbles, finally sitting up. He has bags under his eyes and he really does look absolutely exhausted. Niall figures none of them really look much better though. 

“My section’s not poorly socialized,” Louis counters, “They’re just--”

“Special?” a voice chimes in from Niall’s left, “And not in the good way, either.” Niall raises a hand up over his shoulder without even looking.

“Hi Zayn,” he says. He gets a flick on his ear in return. “Ouch.” 

“Liam’s sick,” Zayn says as he sits down in his seat and starts digging his book and laptop out of his backpack, “Someone besides me needs to take notes for him, because I have no idea what the hell is going on in this class.”

“Doubt mine will be much better,” Niall says, “Won’t Professor Wilson record the lecture anyways?”

“Yeah, but you know Liam.” 

Niall laughs a little.

“Yeah, yeah I do.”

Harry groans, tips over until he’s squishing his face into Niall’s shoulder. 

“Will you be my co-counsel if I get called on?” he grumbles.

“Ask Louis instead,” Niall responds, “He actually understands this stuff.”

“Already did, he didn’t do the reading.” Niall looks over at Louis again, and Louis just shrugs, at least has the decency to look ashamed. 

“Gonna play the lottery today.”

Louis gets called on, of course. Niall and Zayn furiously Facebook chat him answers for the ten minutes that he’s on the hot seat, and he comes out of it smelling like roses. 

“You owe us,” Zayn tells him when they get out of class.

“Big time,” Niall adds.

**October**

“Oh my god, _fuck_ you.”

“No thanks.”

“Ahhh, someone kill him, fucking…Liam, you have a red shell for fuck’s sake!” 

“I don’t know how to!”

“B! Press B!”

“Son of a bitch.”

“….yyyessss victory!”

A pillow goes flying across the living room of Zayn’s flat and hits Harry square in the face.

“It wasn’t me!” Harry squawks, throwing the pillow off, “Liam was the one that killed you!”

“Yeah, but you told him how to!” Louis retorts, picking up another pillow. Niall rescues his and Zayn’s beers off the coffee table, watches another pillow go flying by. In the background, Harry’s little Mario Kart character is celebrating on the TV screen. 

“Law school,” Zayn sighs expressively, watching Louis throw a third pillow at Liam, “The quickest way to turn soon to be lawyers into little children.”

“Yeah, or homicidal maniacs,” Niall offers, “Take your pick.” Zayn laughs.

“Fair point. Depends on which sort of type-A personality you are, I guess.”

“Mmm. You seem like the serial killer type,” Niall deadpans.

“Hey!” 

Zayn reaches to put him in a headlock, but then Harry is diving into their laps. 

“Save me!” Harry squeals, wrapping his arms around Niall’s neck. Louis leaps onto the sofa next and Zayn lets out a sharp unhappy noise, punches Louis none too lightly in the shoulder. 

“There go the future Malik generations,” he groans, doubling up as Louis digs his fingers into Harry’s ribs. Harry yelps, delighted, and then Liam is jumping on top of all of them, and Harry is smashing his face into Niall’s chest, his laughter warm through the fabric of his shirt. 

-

Niall doesn’t remember falling asleep later that night, but he eases into wakefulness for no apparent reason at all, slouched against the arm of the sofa, and the flat is dark around him. Louis is curled up in the chair across the room. Zayn, Niall presumes, is in his own bed. Liam is nowhere to be found, and Niall figures Liam being Liam, he probably went home. And Harry—

Harry is sacked out on the sofa next to him, one arm hanging off the edge, head propped up on a pillow at the opposite end, long legs stretched out over Niall’s. His features are relaxed in sleep, more relaxed than Niall thinks he’s ever seen, and he just looks young, and peaceful, and—

_Beautiful_.

-

Niall eases out of a light sleep to the three-toned chirp of his phone indicating a new text message. He rolls over and cracks one eye open, sees through his blinds that it’s light outside. He blinks a couple times, gropes under his pillow for his phone.

_8:01 AM_  
From: Harry  
whered u goooo? 

Niall sighs, hovers his thumbs over the keyboard for a few seconds before tapping out his response.

_8:06 AM  
back home dont sleep well in strange places :P_

His phone beeps almost immediately with a response.

_8:07 AM  
ur missing breakfast by urs truly!!!_

Niall tries not to think about Harry and breakfasts and lazy mornings in sunlit kitchens.

_8:09 AM  
raincheck :)_

**November**

“Oh my god, you’re worse than Liam.”

Niall looks up from his Torts outline to see Harry plopping into the seat across from him in the plaza outside the law library.

“Am I?” he asks.

Harry looks about as sleep-deprived as Niall feels, but he smiles a punch to Niall’s solar plexus, and Niall has to look back down at his notes.

“He’s been in a panic for the last week now over his outlines,” Harry clarifies.

Niall hums an acknowledgment, because Liam’s not the only one.

“Well, Liam’s going to do well, regardless of whether his outlines are any good,” he says, deleting yet another misspelled word and retyping it with maybe a little more force than is strictly necessary. 

“Hey.” 

The screen of his laptop is slowly but surely being pushed down, his fingers in greater and greater danger of being crushed. 

“Wait, wait, I haven’t saved it,” Niall yelps. He pushes the screen back up, hits the save button on his outline, then sits back and raises his eyebrows at Harry in acquiescence. Harry pushes his laptop screen down until it snaps into place and goes to sleep. 

“You need a drink,” he says. 

“I need to study,” Niall corrects, rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his palms. Harry grabs his wrists, pulls his hands gently away from his face. 

“You’re smart,” he says quietly, “You know that, right?”

“I suppose someone must have thought so,” Niall responds, trying for a wry smile, “Else they wouldn’t have let me in here in the first place.”

Harry rubs the undersides of his wrists with his thumbs, and Niall doesn’t know if it’s the stress or the lack of sleep, or what, but it feels really, really good. 

“You need a drink,” Harry repeats, squeezing Niall’s wrists once before letting go and getting to his feet. “Come on. I’ll buy.”

-

A couple beers later, Niall decides Harry was right. He’s just the right side of tipsy, feeling loose and warm and relaxed, and it’s him and Harry and Zayn sitting at a table tucked away in the corner of a bar near campus, just shooting the shit.

“Gonna watch the City-United derby this weekend?” Zayn asks after they order their third round of beers and a plate of chicken wings to share. 

“6 AM, isn’t it?” Harry queries, picking up a coaster and tossing it like a frisbee at Niall. Niall makes a face at him, throws it back. 

“S’not so bad,” Zayn offers, “I got up at 4 AM for the Liverpool-Arsenal match last weekend and then I just sat down and worked on my outli—“

“Ah, ah, ah,” Harry interrupts him, “No law school talk, remember? That was the deal.” Zayn shoots him a glare, but it’s affectionate.

“S’harder than I thought it would be,” he mutters to Niall in an aside, and Niall laughs. 

Just as their beers and food arrive, Liam and Louis come tumbling into the bar. Louis slots into the seat next to Harry, and Liam sinks down in the seat next to Zayn, and Niall doesn’t know why, but all of a sudden he feels left out. He catalogs the easy hand Louis rests on Harry’s shoulder, the way Liam and Zayn are leaning into each other as they look over the drink menu, and his next slug of beer tastes sour on his tongue. He tells himself it’s stupid, he’s being stupid, these are his friends.

But then Zayn and Liam are laughing about something and Louis is cupping a hand against Harry’s cheek in order to whisper something in his ear, and Niall is getting to his feet, pulling his jacket off the back of his chair. 

“Hey, wait, you haven’t even finished your beer,” Zayn protests. 

“Yeah, I know, I just. Forgot. I have to catch my bus soon,” Niall explains, not even really caring that it’s a weak excuse. He carefully avoids looking at Harry. And Louis. Zayn is watching him, a little furrow in his brow.

“I’ll see you guys later,” he says, tossing a few bills on the table for the bill and for tip and heading for the door. 

He gets about a hundred yards or so when he hears rapid footsteps behind him and then a familiar voice saying his name. He turns around, and Harry is standing there, watching him with tentative eyes. 

“Are you okay?” Harry asks. He sounds really concerned, and Niall feels like shit.

“Yeah. I’m fine. Just. Stressed out.”

Harry looks like he doesn’t quite believe him, but the only alternative is for Niall to tell him the real reason for his hasty exit, and somehow he doesn’t think _I want to be the one touching you instead of Louis_ would go over all that well. 

“Really,” he adds, for emphasis, “I’m just. Really worried I’m going to like. Fail out of law school.” 

Harry shakes his head, like he’s not even going to dignify that with a response. Instead he just holds out his hand, and in it are the bills Niall left on the table. 

“I told you I was buying,” he says. 

“Oh,” Niall says, “It’s. I mean, it’s okay.” 

Harry rolls his eyes, reaches out and grabs Niall’s wrist, presses the bills into his hand. His fingers are warm against Niall’s, and he squeezes his hand a little before he lets go.

But somehow, it still feels like Harry is giving back (rejecting) something else. 

**December**

“Worst. Final. Ever.”

“Everything it was cracked up to be, and then some.”

“Let’s just not talk about it, okay?”

“Beer?”

“Beer.”

Harry slings an arm over Niall’s shoulders as the five of them trudge toward the bar after their Con Law exam, and Niall is hyper aware of it, but he’s too exhausted and relieved to be done with finals to really care all that much. They get to the bar, and a bunch of their classmates from both their sections are there already, but they get their own table anyways. Niall orders the darkest, heaviest beer they have on tap here, and Harry leans into him, gives the waitress his most charming grin and says he’ll have the same. 

“You don’t like dark beers,” Niall notes. Harry shrugs.

“Trying to broaden my horizons,” he responds with a small smile that Niall could almost believe is meant for him alone. 

Half an hour later, though, he sees that same smile reappear on Harry’s face again, this time when Louis is saying something in his ear over the dull roar of the bar noise, and it stays on his lips for longer than it ever has with Niall.

Niall was only going to have a couple beers tonight. But maybe he’ll have a couple more. 

-

He’s on his fifth beer—something amber and not quite as heavy—when Zayn saunters back from the bathroom, all lean grace even when he’s drunk, and drops down into the empty chair next to Niall where Liam had been a few minutes before. 

“Mr. Horan,” he greets Niall with a lazy smile.

“Mr. Malik,” Niall returns. 

“So.” Zayn leans in and rests his elbow on Niall’s shoulder, sets his chin on his forearm. “Not that I’ve spent ample amounts of time thinking about this. But.”

Somehow, Niall knows what he’s going to say before he says it.

“Don’t,” he preempts, quietly. Zayn shifts a little, so his hand is resting on Niall’s shoulder instead.

“Why don’t you tell him?” he asks after a few seconds. 

Niall looks down the table to where Harry and Louis are laughing uproariously at something, Louis’ arm around Harry’s shoulders, Harry’s hand tangled with Louis’. Like it’s preordained or something, written into the script, Louis leans in and plants a kiss on Harry’s cheek. Harry doesn’t pull away. 

Niall reaches for his beer, drinks it back until Zayn is stopping him with a gentle hand on his arm. Niall wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, shrugs like it’s no big deal. 

“That’s why.”


	2. Chapter 2

**1L Year  
January**

“Middle row? Boooo.” 

Niall glances up as Harry slides into the seat next to him for their first Criminal Law class. He’s wearing a dark sweater and jeans, and he looks like the four week winter break has done him a world of good. 

“Reverse psychology,” Niall replies, “Everyone usually tries to avoid getting called on by sitting in the back row.”

“Mmm. Clever. Watch, we’ll probably both get called on now.”

Niall smiles a little.

“How was your break?” he asks, pulling up the latest Premier League scores on his laptop screen, even though he’s already checked them, just so he can have something to ostensibly distract him. He already knows how Harry’s break was, at least part of it; his new Facebook profile picture is a shot of him and Louis celebrating New Year’s Eve together in Doncaster. 

“Good, hung out with Louis and his family for awhile. Met up with Zayn and Liam in London too, right before we came back.”

“Cool.” 

“Yours?” Harry asks, nudging Niall with an elbow. Niall shrugs.

“Nothing special,” he responds, glancing over with a half-smile, “Eating. Drinking. Sleeping.”

_Trying not to think about you._

**February**

“…fee simple determinable, not fee simple absolute, because the condition, if it happens, automatically terminates the estate…”

Niall is trying desperately to stay tuned in to their Property professor’s explanation of one of their classmate’s answers when he feels a leg nudge against his own under the desk. He ignores it for a second, but then there’s another nudge. He glances over fractionally. Harry catches his eye, then looks pointedly at Niall’s computer screen, with the answers for the worksheet they’re currently going through opened up. 

Niall rolls his eyes a little, opens up Facebook and starts a chat with Harry.

Niall Horan: _Lazy ass_

Harry Styles: _International law reading last night was a bitch_

Niall Horan: _I’ve heard almost all the readings in that class are a bitch_

Harry Styles: _You heard right_

Niall Horan: _Should’ve taken Civ Pro II_

Harry Styles: _I know I know. Poor life choice and all that_

“Mr. Styles? #18 please?”

Niall tries to hide a smile. 

“Don’t laugh, Mr. Horan, you’re up next if he doesn’t get it.”

Niall bites down his smile and hastily types out the answer he has written for #18 into the chat box with Harry, hits send. 

“Uh, A has a life estate, and B has a contingent remainder?”

Pause. 

“Did Mr. Horan just send that to you via the Facebook?”

-

“Holy shit. I’m not sure which part is funnier—the fact that she knew _exactly_ what you had done, or the fact that she called it ‘the Facebook.’”

Louis is laughing so hard he’s got his face buried in Harry’s neck, and Niall would kind of care except he’s laughing too hard himself at how hard Liam and Zayn are laughing.

“It’s really not funny!” he exclaims between uncontrollable giggles, “This is me and Harry’s misfortune you’re laughing at here!” 

“We’re law students, mate,” Zayn reminds him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. Niall reaches up and tweaks his nose, and Zayn shoves him. 

“Dinner, boys?” Louis asks. He wraps an arm around Harry’s waist, and they look comfortable and intimate and.

“Think I’ll pass,” Niall responds, shifting his backpack on his shoulders, “Got a lot of work to do for tomorrow.”

“You sure?” Louis asks, and he sounds genuinely let down. Niall hasn’t even bothered to try and dislike him; he likes Louis, he respects him, hopes he can always call Louis a good friend and colleague. 

“Yeah. Another time,” he says with a smile. 

“Gonna hold you to that,” Louis says, warningly holding up a finger. Niall nods, smiles again. 

“Have fun, boys.”

**March**

“They’re not that bad.”

“They are that bad.”

“Liam.”

“Zayn.”

Niall looks back and forth between Liam and Zayn, following their ping-pong back and forth conversation over their trio of beers. 

“We spent half an hour last week discussing whether a couple that engaged in BDSM could sue for loss of consortium,” Liam says, “And that was in Property.”

“…okay. Maybe they are that bad,” Zayn concedes, grimacing like he’s just remembered the incident Liam is referencing. 

“Your section sounds fun,” Niall comments, “I should sneak in one of these days.”

Louis and Harry walk into the bar then, and right from the moment he sees them, Niall can tell something’s off with them. Louis goes and sits down next to Zayn, and Harry comes and sits next to Niall, and for the first five minutes or so, they don’t even talk to each other. There’s no tension in the air, nothing to suggest an overt falling out or anything, but Zayn catches Niall’s eye across the table, clearly questioning, and Niall flashes him a quick “I have no idea either” look. 

-

Four beers later, Niall knows something is definitely up. And if he’s honest with himself, it’s…nice, actually. Harry is talking to Niall more than usual, leaning into him when he laughs, stealing sips of his drink when he thinks Niall isn’t looking, and yeah, it’s nice, it’s better than nice, even.

But even with the alcohol warming his veins and dulling his senses, he’s still hyperaware of the fact that Harry and Louis are both his best friends, and whatever he feels for Harry, it’s not his place, not his prerogative to do anything about it. He’s not a homewrecker.

“Hey, want to get some air?” 

Harry is standing up next to him, tugging lightly on his sleeve, and Niall kind of doesn’t want to because they’re both drunk, and going off alone and drunk together probably isn’t the best bet, but Harry seems insistent, so Niall complies. 

It’s cool outside, evening well on the way, and undergrads are scurrying past, carefree and giggling about weekend plans. Niall envies them. 

“Those were the days, huh?” Harry asks, leaning against the wall next to him. His expression is warm, soft around the edges, and Niall looks away, watches some more students walk past. 

“Yeah, those were definitely the days,” he agrees, “When weekends were actually weekends, and not just study days.”

“Yeah…” Harry sighs, “Yeah, it’ll be fine though. We’ll be fine.”

You will be, Niall thinks. He’s not so sure about himself. It’s not like he’s going to fail out. But it’s not like he’s going to have firms lining up on his doorstep either. It’s ridiculous, and he knows it, to feel stupid when he’s here, at one of the best law schools in the country, in the world, but around the other boys, sometimes he does feel kind of stupid.

“Hey, so. I’ve been thinking.”

Niall raises an eyebrow, turns to look over at Harry again and—

Harry is kissing him. Not hard, not overly aggressive, just. Kissing him. And Niall has wanted this for so long, it takes him an agonizingly long second to push away. 

“No,” he says, half to himself. Harry is still close, inside his personal space. Niall has to step away.

“No,” he repeats, “I’m. I can’t, Harry.”

“Niall—“

“I can’t. I can’t be a replacement, okay?”

“Replace-…Niall, no, it’s. That’s not—“

“I know something’s going on with you and Louis and. I’m sorry, okay? You guys are good for each other, and the timing is shitty, especially with job apps and everything and—“ Niall cuts himself off because he’s starting to ramble and his voice is starting to waver. He looks at the ground, at the storefronts across the street, at anything except Harry. 

“It’s. It’s always been you. For me,” he admits, and it’s not as difficult as he somehow thought it would be, “So I just. I can’t be a placeholder, you know? I’d. I’d do pretty much anything to make you happy. But. Not this.”

He turns around then, starts walking away.

Harry doesn’t call after him.

**April**

“So this is where you’ve been hiding out.”

Niall looks up from his Criminal Law outline, sees Zayn standing next to his table. He glances around the coffee shop, a little independent place a few blocks from campus, and shrugs.

“Not exactly hiding out.”

Zayn raises a skeptical eyebrow. Niall shrugs again. He misses Zayn. And Liam. And Louis. And Harry. But he just. Needs time. It’s hard enough having to sit next to Harry in 3/4 of his classes. He’s taken to getting to class right on time, or even a little bit late, so there’s no chance for Harry to talk to him, and when class ends, he bolts. The first few times, he thinks Harry called after him.

Now there’s just silence in his wake. 

“Want to hear something interesting?” Zayn asks after a few moments.

“Depends,” Niall responds. Zayn cracks a smile at the typical law school answer, and takes a seat across from him. 

“Louis and Harry. They were never actually together.”

Niall blinks, frowns, because,

“What? Of course they were.”

“Both of them are pretty adamant that they weren’t.”

Niall wonders if this is some sort of cruel prank, would like to think he’s known Zayn long enough to know whether he was capable of pulling shit like this, but maybe he’s wrong. 

“Don’t fuck with me,” he mutters, trying, and mostly failing, to put some heat behind his words. 

“Look, Ni. I know where you’re coming from. We all saw it and came to the same conclusion. We all thought they were together. Half of my section. Probably most of yours, too. But clearly we were all wrong.”

“Okay.” Niall doesn’t really know what else to say.

“Harry’s. Harry’s kind of a mess,” Zayn continues, a little hesitantly, “He’s. I think he’d really like to talk to you but. He said he understands you might want some space for awhile.”

Niall nods, at nothing really in particular. 

“I told him, you know. How I felt,” he says after a few seconds, “I don’t know what else we have to talk about.”

Zayn curls his lower lip inward, looks at Niall with something like sadness.

“Then maybe don’t talk,” he suggests quietly, “Just listen.”

-

The next day they have oral arguments for their legal writing briefs. It’s really just practice for the hell that awaits most of them in the form of Moot Court in their second year. Niall’s well and truly annoyed by the time he’s on deck at 11 AM, because he’s not a fan of the whole suit and tie thing, and he’d seriously be okay with working at some tiny, no-name non-profit after law school as long as he doesn’t have to dress up like this every day. 

They haven’t been told who they’re arguing against, so when he hears someone walking up behind him, he turns around and expects it to be someone he’s maybe seen around a few times but doesn’t really know.

He’s not expecting it to be Harry.

And not like it’s a surprise that Harry looks fucking _amazing_ in a suit and tie, classy and suave and good-looking, like the high-powered attorney down from his corner office at the best firm in the city.

_Fuck my life,_ Niall thinks to himself. Harry looks like he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself, and it’s awkward and uncertain, and Niall hates it. Maybe he can’t ever have what he wants, but Harry’s still his best friend, and he _misses_ him.

“So you’re my opposing counsel?” he asks, trying for a smile. Harry relaxes, smiles tentatively back. 

“Yeah, that’s me.”

Niall aches a little, but it’s not so bad, and he thinks maybe he can get used to this, get over it. Eventually.

“Alright. Well. What do you think they’d do if we go in there and just both go up and say, “Plaintiff rests; defense rests?””

**May**

“I hate other law students.” 

“Why, what’d they do this time?”

“Someone took our Property practice exams from the course reserves in the library and just failed to return them. At all.”

“Ooh. Classy.”

Niall leans back in his seat in the plaza, stares up at the sky and wishes horrible, terrible things on the person who stole the course reserves. It’s not like he thinks he’s going to get an A in property—he’s aiming for that top-of-the-curve B—but it’s mostly just the principle of the thing. No wonder people think lawyers are scum. 

A face appears in his vision, silhouetted against the sun. For a second he can’t really tell who it is. Then--

“Hi Harry,” Zayn says from across the table, and oh. Niall sits up. Zayn is looking at Liam, who’s looking at Harry. 

“Right uh. We should get back to studying,” Liam says, grabbing for his bookbag. Niall watches them walk off towards the library, deliberately casual. Sighs. Turns to Harry as he sits down in Liam’s chair. 

“That wasn’t obvious or anything,” he says, a little dryly. Harry smiles.

“Amazing what buying law students a couple cups of coffee during exam time will get you.”

Niall hums an acknowledgment.

Silence.

“Louis and I. We were never together.”

Niall nods.

“So Zayn told me.”

Harry sighs, starts fooling with the hem of his t-shirt. 

“That night at the bar. Louis and I had this discussion before we got there about it. Because. You know Louis. He’s fun and easy to get along with and he doesn’t take himself too seriously. So like. It was easy for me to. Fall into that I guess. And not think about stuff too much.”

Niall nods an acknowledgment. 

“But that night, he sat me down and he was basically like, this isn’t fair to me or you because like. He was like, “I love you, but I’m not in love with you. And you love me, but you’re in love with someone else.””

Niall starts to nod again, on autopilot, and then what Harry’s actually said registers with him, and what?

“I’m. I never meant to make you feel like. Like you were a replacement, or second best or whatever. Because. Because it was always you, for me too. And, I don’t know. I was kind of freaked out I guess.”

Niall takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly.

“By me?” he asks, finally looking directly across the table, “Or like. By wanting to.” The words _be with me_ sound so strange, even his head, so he doesn’t say them, but Harry is chewing so voraciously on his lower lip that Niall worries he might make himself bleed, so maybe he doesn’t need to.

“No. Not.” Harry stops, looks out across the plaza, then looks back. 

“You know, us law students. We think we’re so like. Confident and smart and whatever. And. But deep down I feel like we’re just super insecure, so we hide behind statutes and rules and shit.”

Harry looks as serious as Niall’s ever seen him, even when he’s been under the gun on some of the scariest cold calls of their 1L year. 

“When was the last time someone told us, ‘go with your gut’?” he says, “Or, you know, ‘do what feels right’?”

Pause.

“Or.” Harry finds Niall’s gaze, holds it. “Or ‘follow your heart’?”

**June**

“Stop it! Cheating, I call cheating on Zayn!”

“Pick a bigger character next time, Lou, not some puny little mushroom in diapers.” 

“I think Donkey Kong has been taking performance enhancing drugs.”

“Slander! Defamation!”

“Freedom of spee—HEY!”

“Gogogogogo—“

“Oi, that’s—you can’t do that, you can’t form alliances like that!” 

“Says who?”

“Uh. Just because we had to knock both of you emotionally constipated dimwits upside the head so you would actually get together does not allow you to desecrate the sacred altar of Mario Kart with your—“

“Louis, stop talking like Justice Scalia or I’m going to smother you with this pillow.”

“Assault! Does that count as assault? It does right? If I have apprehension of imminent violence?”

“I think you consented to it when you started imitating Scalia, to be fair.”

“Your Honor, opposing counsel is being unreasonable in its interpretation—“

Liam throws the threatened pillow then, and Louis starts hollering about battery, launches himself at Liam, and Liam pulls an unwilling Zayn into the fray. 

On the opposite end of the couch, Harry sneaks an arm around Niall’s neck, tugs him in close.

“Who’s our next target?” he asks, tilting his head toward the TV screen where Niall’s character is celebrating its latest victory.

“Let’s go for Zayn,” Niall replies, “I think Louis might break something or someone if we keep this up.”

Harry laughs, a quiet, private one just for Niall, darts in and mouths a quick kiss at the corner of his mouth.

“Oi love birds! Quit canoodling and get your loved-up arses back here for a rematch.”

Niall raises a conspiratorial eyebrow at Harry, who grins back. 

“Love birds?” Niall asks quietly, so the others can’t hear.

“Canoodling?” Harry asks in reply. 

“D’you think Lou’s head might actually explode if he gets crazy enough?”

Harry snorts, buries his face momentarily in Niall’s shoulder. 

“I don’t know,” he says when he resurfaces, “Let’s find out, shall we?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blame strawberryfinn for this. I wasn't planning on writing more parts to this.

**2L Year  
August**

“Top of the morning, boys.”

“Mr. Malik. How was your summer with Covington and Burling?”

The way Zayn freezes at Niall’s words, it’s like he’s been caught in some sort of massive scandal instead of being found out as having worked as a summer associate at one of the best law firms in the country.

“How did you find out about that?”

Liam coughs, not so subtly, and Zayn whips around to look at him. Liam rolls his eyes, holds up his hands.

“They asked. I didn’t feel like lying on your behalf,” he defends, “And besides, I think you’ve earned some bragging rights after those dickheads last year said you only got in here because you’re a “raghead” and you’d never make the top 100, never mind the top 10.”

Niall blinks, trying to take in everything Liam’s just said.

“Sorry—what?”

“Yeah, uhm, first off. Who were these dickheads and what fucking century are they from?” Harry asks. 

“And second of all, you’re top 10?” Louis adds. 

Zayn glares sideways at Liam, but it doesn’t look particularly malicious. 

“See if I ever tell you anything ever again.” 

Liam rolls his eyes, supremely unconcerned. 

“It was some idiots from our section, like, the first week or something. Zayn got called in…Torts?”

“Yeah, Torts,” Zayn affirms, “And I didn’t do all that well. So.”

“Because cold calls are such a great indicator of how well someone is going to do come exam time,” Niall says sarcastically, rolling his eyes. 

“Who has Crim Pro with me in…half an hour?” Zayn asks, glancing at his watch. 

“You mean the Class of Death?” Harry corrects with just a hint of a pout, “Fifty five pages of reading for the first day has to be a record of some kind.”

“Glad I avoided that one,” Niall says.

“Gonna have to take it eventually,” Liam cautions, “Bar course and all.”

“Yeah but by 3L year do you think I’m actually going to be doing fifty five page readings, ever?” Niall responds reasonably. 

“…Fair,” Liam says after a second. He and Harry and Zayn get to their feet, gathering up their things. Harry leans down, steals a quick, easy kiss from Niall’s lips and trudges off with Zayn and Liam across the plaza. 

Louis catches Niall’s eye across the table, winks, and Niall tries for a sheepish grin, but knows it probably comes off more satisfied than anything else. 

**September**

“Sshhh.”

Niall presses a hand over Harry’s mouth as he tries to simultaneously scout out the stacks on the fourth floor of the library and push Harry towards the corner farthest away from the main entrance. Harry licks his hand, and Niall grabs at his side in retaliation.

“Jesus, stop giggling,” he reprimands. Harry obediently buries his face in the crook of Niall’s neck, and Niall is able to survey the rest of the aisles with relative ease. When he’s satisfied that they’re alone, he puts his hands on Harry’s shoulders so he’ll stand up and walks him backward until he’s up against one of the metal bookshelves.

“Desecrating the—“ Harry checks over his shoulder, “Supreme Court Reporters, are we?”

Niall smiles, leans in until his mouth is ghosting over Harry’s. He parts his lips a little, and Harry imitates him. Niall feels him nudging his thigh between his legs.

“Freedom of expression,” Niall breathes before sealing the kiss. 

-

“You look well-fucked,” Zayn comments bluntly when Niall drops into his seat in their Tax Law class. Niall feels his cheeks heat, because he’s still a little wobbly from the orgasm Harry dragged out of him and his throat’s still a little sore from straining so hard to keep from screaming into Harry’s shoulder. But he can’t quite help the smile that curls at the edges of his mouth. Because he’s also a little wobbly from the way Harry held him up in the aftermath, easing him back down with careful kisses and gentle hands stroking over his sides and back. 

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

**October**

“Hey.”

A warm hand presses against the back of Niall’s neck, and a second later, slightly chapped lips against his temple. Niall relaxes almost instinctively, leans his head back, and gets another kiss on the mouth. 

“Hey,” he whispers when Harry draws back. He knows there are a few people studying in the carrels down the row from him, and he doesn’t want to incur their wrath this early in the semester. 

“How’re you holding up?” Harry whispers back, stroking a thumb lightly over the nape of Niall’s neck. 

“Let’s just say 2L year is going to be a hell of a year, if this pace keeps up for the rest of it.”

“Public interest clinic?” Harry asks. 

“Yeah, mostly. And it’s like, I have actual clients now, so it’s just, I can’t mess up, you know?”

Harry squeezes his shoulders.

“You won’t mess up,” he assures, “You did this stuff all summer, and they asked you back for next summer, so I imagine you’re pretty good at it.”

Niall smiles a little, shrugs. 

“Maybe.” 

“Can I tempt you away from your books for dinner?” Harry asks. Niall looks down at his Administrative Law book, then up at his notes. Ten more pages of this, then thirty pages of Tax Law and twenty five for Evidence. Plus a client affidavit that he has to start drafting for his clinic. 

“Sorry,” he says, and it comes out like a sigh, “I’m just. Buried right now.”

Harry doesn’t hesitate, and Niall thinks maybe that’s the upside of being with someone who’s a fellow law student. 

“Okay,” he says without even a hint of disappointment, squeezing a hand at the back of Niall’s neck, “Good luck. Don’t stay here too late.”

-

A couple hours later, Niall goes downstairs to print out some of his notes and a supplemental reading for tomorrow. He stops to talk to a couple classmates in the printer room, and when he gets back to his carrel, there’s a Chipotle burrito and a bottle of Coke waiting on his desk for him. On the aluminum foil wrapper of the burrito, written in permanent marker are the words “brain food” and on the cap of the Coke, a drawing of a pair of puckered lips. He smiles, digs out his phone and fires off a quick text to Harry.

_I wouldnt put it past you to spit in my drink or smthng as ur idea of a romantic gesture_

Harry responds almost instantly.

_hey be nice i just bought you dinner_

Niall opens the Coke and takes a long, satisfying swig before replying.

_dont kno what uve heard but my affections arent for sale_

A slightly longer pause, then:

_oh no?_

Niall contemplates for a second.

_no see theres this curly haired law student who gives really good handjobs and even better kisses and thinks im gonna be a good lawyer even tho im not in the top 10 and i want to do public interest work. Im kind of already attached to him._

Longest pause yet. 

_well that guy must feel really lucky to have you whoever he is_

Niall smiles again.

_thanks for dinner_

_no problem. x_

**November**

“So. Things are going good? I mean, between you two.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s. Really good.”

Niall knows he’s not really supposed to be hearing this; he zonked out with his head on Harry’s legs while they were watching The Avengers at Liam’s place, and he doesn’t know how long he’s been out, but the room around him is quiet now, except for Louis and Harry’s quiet voices, which were the thing that woke him up in the first place. 

“You were so gone for him, Haz. Like, so early on.”

“Yeah. I know. I mean. I know now. Thanks to you.”

“Do your parents know?”

“That’s an ambiguous question, but. The answer’s no, either way.”

“Oh.”

Niall dislikes the flatness in Harry’s voice when he talks about his parents. It’s something they discussed briefly, early on, and haven’t really gone back to since. Harry is pretty adamant that his parents will react poorly. It’s one of his reasons for being here, across the ocean, instead of going to school back in England. It makes Niall thankful for how his parents have handled it, even if it took them some time to come around, initially.

“What about his parents?”

“They know. About him, anyways. And they’ve been like, really mature about it. Like, they acknowledged that they had prejudices or whatever and then worked really hard to like…overcome them.”

“Wow. Guess it kind of explains why our Nialler has got his head on so straight.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

Niall feels Harry’s hand slide into his hair, fingertips gentle against his scalp.

“My parents. I don’t know. I think my plane could have crashed on the way over here and they wouldn’t have cared.”

“Louis.” 

“Okay, okay, that came out slightly…morbid. But like. Zayn and I were talking because. I think he and I have similar situations where like…neither of us turned out the way our parents wanted us to, and so they just like, gave up on us.”

“…I suppose none of us would be here in the States if we weren’t kind of, like. Running away from something.”

“Yeah.”

Harry’s hand moves to Niall’s face, fingers tracing his cheek, his forehead, his jaw. 

“Do you. Do you think you guys are going to last?”

“I’m. Law school’s a terrible place to try and have a relationship, you know?”

“Yeah. For a lot of reasons, I’d imagine.”

“Yeah. But.” 

Harry pauses.

“I really, really hope we can make it work.”

**December**

“Want to know what my last like…half of my answer to the third question was?”

“Substantial evidence? Over and over and over again?”

“Close. I went for clearly erroneous. I think I used the word deference a bunch of times too.”

“Hey, you’re set then. Remember that day we kept a tally of how many times Kurtz said ‘deference’ in one class period?”

“Hey boys, a toast. To being halfway done with law school.”

“Oh my god, I hadn’t even thought of it like that. Cheers, lads.”

Niall raises his glass, clinks it obligingly against the other boys’ and takes a long drink. He’s pleasantly drunk already, well on his way to forgetting how absolutely traumatic their Administrative Law exam was, and Harry’s tracing lazy patterns on his knee under the table, and he’s just. Happy.

“Plans for the winter break?” Zayn asks. 

“Home for like, a week, and then back here,” Louis responds. 

“Yeah, same,” Liam says.

“Uhm.” Harry looks sideways at Niall, smiles a little sheepishly. Niall fights down a blush. 

“Oi, if your answer involves anything more graphic than tonsil hockey I don’t want to hear it,” Louis declares quickly. 

“Not a voyeur then, Louis?” Zayn jibes with a wicked grin. 

“Just well-mannered,” Louis says primly, to which the whole table roars with laughter. 

-

Niall doesn’t know if it’s fate, or maybe just dumb luck, that he misses the last bus back to his apartment. He’s looking at the bus schedule posted on the inside of the bus shelter, mentally calculating how much it’s going to be for a cab back, when Harry tugs lightly on his sleeve. 

“So uh. My apartment’s actually not that far from here,” he says. Niall blinks.

“Oh,” he says dumbly. Harry tucks his hands in his pockets, looks uncertain.

“You uh. I mean. You don’t have to. Like. I can sleep on the couch or something.”

Niall smiles then, well over his initial, split second of hesitation.

“If I’m going to sleep over at your place for the first time, I’m not going to exile you to the couch.”

Harry smiles, still looks tentative.

“I’m not trying to like. Pressure you or anything,” he says. Niall huffs out a feigned sigh of impatience, closes the space between them and tugs on Harry’s scarf, pulls him in until he can press their mouths together, not hard, but not soft either. 

“And I don’t feel pressured,” he assures when he draws back, “So. Can we go already?” 

Harry just reaches for his hand in response.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank strawberryfinn for encouraging me to write this. :) Getting this in just before classes start up again. Been laying low because a) it's really cold out and b) there was a drive-by shooting outside my apartment this morning. Life in the big city, man.

**2L Year  
January**

“You know what’s weird?”

“Mm?”

“First year, I didn’t even know if I wanted to be in law school. And now, I feel like. I feel like it was the best decision I could have made.”

Niall feels Harry’s fingers pause in their path over his bare back, turns his head so he can rest his cheek on his folded arms and look at him. The covers are bunched around their waists and they’re fully clothed underneath because when they got back to Harry’s apartment from the library last night they were both too tired to do anything except strip off their shirts and fall into bed. 

“I mean, I don’t like all the classroom, cold-calling bullshit,” Niall continues, “But like. The clinic work and like. The skills I’m developing there. I actually really like it.”

“That’s good,” Harry observes, resting his hand in the small of Niall’s back, “I can tell that, you know…you’re happier.” 

Niall smiles, stretches his leg out under the covers until it bumps into Harry’s.

“The company’s not bad, either,” he adds. Harry smiles back, ducks his head down and pecks a kiss to the corner of Niall’s mouth.

“Do you have to go in to the clinic today?” he asks, draping his arm over Niall’s shoulders. 

“Yeah, I have a client meeting,” Niall answers. 

“I hope your clients realize how lucky they are to have you as their attorney,” Harry says. For a split second Niall thinks he sees something like sadness shading the edges of his smile, but it’s gone as quickly as it came, and Niall figures he probably imagined it.

“I don’t know,” Niall admits, “I’m not sure a student attorney inspires much confidence. But. I like the work. And it’s nice to like. Help people who need it, instead of. You know, corporations that just want to like, squirrel away money in offshore tax havens.”

Harry huffs out a quiet laugh, presses his face into Niall’s shoulder. 

“You’re kind of amazing, you know that?” he mumble. Niall flushes.

“I could say the same about you,” he replies, and he means it. Harry hums, quiet and warm against Niall’s skin. 

“When do you have to go in to the clinic?” he asks. 

“Mm…couple hours,” Niall responds, glancing at his watch, still on his wrist. 

“So. You have time,” Harry says, lifting his head up a little. Niall smiles.

“Time for what?” he asks, perfectly innocent. 

Harry grips his shoulder, rolls him gently but firmly over onto his back. Then he leans down, fits their lips together, licks at the seam of Niall’s mouth until he opens up. 

“Oh,” Niall says breathlessly when Harry pulls back, “That. Yes. I think I have time for that.”

**February**

“Horan! Long time no see!”

“It hasn’t been that long, Zayn.”

“Three weeks and counting, last I checked. Clinic eating you up?”

“Yeah. Two asylum interviews scheduled now, detained courts, and I have to cover the crisis hotline twice a week.”

“How many credits is that again?”

“Not enough.” 

Niall takes the seat across from Zayn in the plaza and digs his sandwich out of his backpack. It’s nothing special, just ham and cheese, but Niall hasn’t eaten since 7 AM and it’s noon now and he’s starving. 

“Seen Harry?” Zayn asks after a few seconds. Niall winces a little.

“Not much,” he responds around a mouthful of sandwich, “He’s been busy and so have I. It’s. You know. Law school.”

Zayn nods. 

“I’m. Kind of worried about him actually,” he says, drumming his knuckles absentmindedly against the table. 

“Oh?” 

“Yeah but. You know Harry. He’s pretty good about not getting too caught up in all the law school stress-is-your-life bullshit but like. I don’t know. He just seems. Not himself.”

Niall makes a mental note to stop by Harry’s carrel after class today, maybe bring him a cup of coffee. They’ve talked about it, how they know there will be times like this, when they simply won’t have time to spend together, or the energy to really be there for each other the way they should be, and Niall knows better than to feel guilty, but if Zayn is worried, then maybe Harry really is stressed out. 

“Talked to Louis?” Niall knows Harry still talks to Louis about a lot of stuff, and he’s glad. He knows better than to want, or need, to be Harry’s only emotional outlet. 

“He’s almost as AWOL as you,” Zayn observes, “Job stuff. There’s a couple places he really wants to work for and he’s in like, the final interview stages so.”

“Makes sense.”

Niall finishes up his sandwich and balls up the plastic bag it was in, throws it at Zayn. It falls woefully short. 

“Gonna go find Harry,” he says, getting to his feet.

“Later, Ni.”

-

Niall goes to the café and gets a cup of coffee, then goes up to the second floor of the library. Harry is at his carrel, and when Niall gets closer, he can see that he’s asleep, literally face-planted in his Mergers and Acquisitions textbook. Niall smiles a little, sets the coffee down next to him and tugs at a stray curl, then leans down and blows lightly in Harry’s ear until he jolts awake. He looks around blearily, and when he sees Niall, he half-smiles. 

“Hey,” he says, voice gravelly. He looks. Tired. And not just the kind of tired that comes from cat-napping in the carrels. 

“Looks like you could use this,” Niall says, tapping the coffee cup. 

“Yeah.” Harry presses his hands against his eyes. Niall leans against the edge of his carrel, watches him for a moment. 

“Alright?” he asks. 

“Fine,” Harry says, and it’s just this side of a retort. Niall purses his lips.

“Should I leave you alone?” 

Harry sighs.

“Yeah, maybe.”

Niall nods, allows himself to feel the momentary stab of hurt, and then reminds himself that law school and stress are a shitty combination and Harry might seem carefree and fun and laid back, but he’s not much better than Niall when it comes to giving himself any breaks.

“Alright. Good luck.” He drops a kiss on the top of Harry’s head and departs. 

-

A few hours later, when Niall is back at his apartment, his mobile rings to life. 

“Hello?”

“Hey. It’s me.”

“Heya Haz.”

“You sound…surprisingly happy to hear from me.”

“I could pretend to be mad but. I don’t think that’d be particularly productive. Or mature.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry. For like. Being a dick.”

“Well. You know I signed up for the good, the bad and the ugly, right? Like, I kind of assumed going in this would be a package deal. And. I mean, if that was you being a dick then. Hey. I think I can be okay with that.”

“I’m just. Stressed out. And like. I’m getting worse at handling it or something.”

“Stress does weird and crazy things to people. Especially law students.”

“Yeah.”

“Feel like coming over? My reading can wait until tomorrow and I’ve got a 12 pack of that Goose Island 312 stuff.”

“I would but. I’m really behind on my reading so. Rain check?”

“Of course. Have a good night.”

“You too.”

**March**

“So. Remember when you said Harry wasn’t himself?”

“Yep.”

“I think I get what you were saying now.”

Zayn looks across the table in the 4th floor library study room that he and Niall are camped out in, raises a questioning eyebrow. Niall huffs out a breath, tosses his pen onto his Immigration Law case book. 

“Like. He’s stressed out, and it makes him snappy and short-tempered and. I don’t mind, you know? Like, I get it. But.” Niall pauses, thinks about what he’s trying to say. “I think it’s more than that?”

Zayn nods a little.

“I feel like. He’s not taking care of himself like he should,” Niall continues, “Like, I’ve barely seen him eat, and when I do, it’s just take-out stuff, and we haven’t. I haven’t stayed over at his place much but. I don’t think he’s sleeping well either.”

Zayn nods again, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. 

“He got really snappy with Louis a couple days ago, which like…no offense to you, but probably has happened, like, never, in the history of the world.”

Niall nods, not offended at all. Zayn turns his pen over slowly between his fingers, looks down at their books and papers scattered across the table between them.

“Have you talked to him?” he asks, “Like, really talked to him.”

“No time,” Niall admits, “I mean. I’ve asked. Like, without being overbearing, you know. And he says he’s just stressed out. So. I don’t want to be that guy, you know. Who gets like, nagging and whatever.”

“I don’t think you could ever be that guy, Niall,” Zayn says with a small smile. 

“I hope not,” Niall responds, “I’m giving consent for you to punch me if I ever get like that.”

Zayn laughs. 

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

He taps the end of his pen against his case book, doodles some random shapes in the margins.

“Maybe it really is just stress,” he says after a moment, “I mean. 1L year was such a whirlwind and I think he and Louis in particular really thrived on that. But. 2L year is more of a grind, you know? Less novelty, more day-in-day-out reading and stuff.”

“Could be,” Niall acknowledges.

“It’s almost April,” Zayn points out, “Month and a half to go, and then this year is done and we’re two thirds of the way through and then you guys have three months to basically get reacquainted or whatever.”

Niall smiles, reaching for his pen again. 

“Reacquainted,” he echoes, “Eloquent, Zayn. Very eloquent.”

“I think it’s called a euphemism, actually. But. You know. Semantics.”

**April**

“So how’d the asylum interview go?”

“Good, I think. Our officer seemed pretty new, so. I’m hoping that works in our favor.”

“You want the officer to be new?”

“Yeah. Well. Maybe. Newer officers are hopefully a little less jaded than older ones.”

“Mmm. Makes sense.”

Niall watches Harry moving around his kitchen, opening and closing cabinets, diving into the refrigerator and emerging with various fresh produce. Even here, in his own apartment, he looks ill at ease. His face is drawn and there are bags under his eyes and he just looks drained. 

“Do you want some help?” Niall asks. 

“No, no, I’ve got it. Thanks, though.”

Harry starts cutting up some vegetables, and Niall watches him for a few more moments.

“I hear things got heated in your Con Law II class last week,” he says eventually. Harry smiles, but it looks wan, stretched. 

“Yeah. We have some raving liberals and some raving conservatives in that class so. They go at it on a lot of the equal protection stuff.”

“Of course, American liberals are pretty conservative to British liberals,” Niall observes. 

“Yeah, and American conservatives are uh. Something else.” Harry picks up the cutting board and scrapes the vegetables into a pot of water, sets the burner on medium. 

“Beer?” he asks, turning to Niall. 

“Like you have to ask,” Niall responds with a smile. 

-

Later, after dinner and a few more beers, they’re sprawled out on the couch watching TV, and Harry is playing his fingers along the inside of Niall’s knee, but Niall gets the sense it’s an absentminded action. 

“Hey.” He shifts his leg on Harry’s lap to get his attention. Harry looks over at him. “Are you okay? You seem. Out of it.”

Harry shrugs, plucks lightly at Niall’s jeans. 

“Yeah, just. Tired. Got a lot on my plate right now.” 

Niall hums an acknowledgment, reaches down and catches Harry’s hand with his own, laces their fingers together. 

“You’ll get it done,” he assures, “It’ll work out, one way or another.”

Harry looks at him for a long moment, and for once Niall can’t really read his expression. 

“Yeah,” he says eventually, “I hope so.” 

Then he carefully, deliberately disentangles his fingers from Niall’s. 

And Niall feels like he’s been punched in the gut. 

-

“I don’t know Niall. I don’t. Did you ask him?”

Niall sighs, clutching his phone tightly to his ear, like maybe it’ll make Zayn closer, lend him more of the comfort intrinsic in his voice and his tone. 

“No. I was. I don’t know. I didn’t want to be like. Overly dramatic.”

Zayn makes a sympathetically impatient noise, because apparently that’s possible.

“Niall. You’re with him and he’s with you. You’re allowed to like. Call him out on giving you the cold shoulder.”

“I know.” Niall hates that his voice comes out sounding kind of pathetic. 

“Call him,” Zayn urges, “Ask him what’s going on. You’re never going to get to sleep like this.”

-

Niall takes his advice; Harry doesn’t pick up.

**May**

“Harry. _Haz_.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Harry, what the _hell_.”

“It’s just. I think it’s better this way, if we like. Take a break.”

“Okay. Can I get a reason at least?”

“I just think it’s. Better. With the stress and all, and us not really having time to like. Spend together.”

“…if this is about someone else, then be a grown-up and tell me.”

“It’s _not_. I just think it’s—“

“Better. Right. I got that.”

“Niall—“

“No, you know what? It’s fine. It’s. I’m not going to like, fight you on this. You want what you want and. It’s not my place to tell you what that should be.”

-

Niall goes to Zayn’s, and Zayn takes one look at his face and just stretches out an arm. Niall steps into the embrace, feeling brittle and hollowed out. Zayn doesn’t say anything, just guides him inside his flat. Sits him down on his sofa, crouches down in front of him. 

“What do you need?” he asks. Niall shrugs.

“I guess saying alcohol would be kind of cliché, huh?” he asks rhetorically. His voice feels strained. 

“I have beer. And vodka. And some rum, I think.”

“Got any dumb movies to go along with that?” Niall asks. Zayn quirks a not-quite smile. 

“Are you kidding me? What a question to ask a single 20-something guy.”

-

They crack open a couple beers and start watching Transformers 3. 

It isn’t until maybe halfway through, in the middle of some action scene with multiple explosions and cars turning into robots, that Niall realizes he’s crying. He sets his head soundlessly on Zayn’s shoulder, feels Zayn’s sleeve dampen under his cheek. 

Zayn wordlessly wraps an arm around him, shifts on the couch so Niall can turn his face all the way into his shoulder. Keeps his eyes on the screen. Says, so quietly that Niall barely hears him,

“He’ll come around, Ni.”


	5. Chapter 5

**3L Year  
August**

“You know what I don’t get?”

“What?”

“Why they curve our Ethics class. Of all things.”

“Yeah, that’s true, huh? Like, ‘we want you to be ethical, but we’re still going to make you wish the guy next to you screws up on exam day.’”

“Ah, law school.”

Niall drops down into a back-row seat in his Advanced Corporations class room. Liam slides into the seat next to him, tosses his book onto the desk in front of him. 

“Have you heard from Legal Aid yet about whether they’re gonna hire you after graduation?” he asks. 

“Not yet,” Niall responds with a shake of his head, “I’m. Cautiously optimistic though.”

“You should be,” Liam says, “Sounds like they really liked you and like, trusted you with a lot of stuff.”

“And I didn’t screw up, as far as I know,” Niall adds. Liam hums an acknowledgment. A few of their classmates filter into the room around them, take their seats. Niall nods at a few of them that he knows from other classes and moot court. 

“Have you uh. Talked to Harry?” Liam asks quietly. 

Niall shakes his head, careful not to make his motion too sharp or too fast. He’s had three months to get over it so it’s fine. He’s fine. 

“I think. He may have this class with us,” Liam says. Niall shrugs, again carefully casual.

“Okay,” he says. He’s not 16 years old anymore. It’s not a big deal. 

It’s weird, though, how he can still pinpoint the exact moment Harry walks into the room, even with his back to the door. He thinks maybe it’s partly the way Liam stiffens slightly next to him, and maybe partly the fact that Harry clears his throat in a way that Niall can’t fail to recognize as he walks in. 

But deep down, he knows that without either of those things, he would still know. 

**September**

“That looks tasty.”

Niall glances up from his sandwich, finds Louis standing next to his carrel. He holds the sandwich up to offer a taste, and Louis looks at it appraisingly.

“Bologna?” he says after a second, “No thanks.”

“Your loss,” Niall says with a shrug, taking another bite. He’s actually not entirely sure how to act around Louis right now, because he knows Louis is closest out of all of them to Harry and he doesn’t know what Louis knows, what Harry might have told him. 

“Zayn and Liam are down in the plaza eating. Want to join them?” Louis asks. 

“I uhm. Actually have to do some work,” Niall responds, nodding towards the books tucked into the top shelf of his carrel. 

Louis is quiet for a long moment, and Niall gets the distinct impression he’s hesitating. 

“I don’t like feeling like I have to choose sides, Ni,” he says, barely above a whisper. 

Niall feels a torrent of emotions at that – anger at Harry for making this what it is, sadness that he might lose more than just Harry over this, guilt because it’s not fair to the other boys. He takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly.

“Lou, I’m not. I’m not the one that wanted to end it.”

Louis sighs.

“I know. But. Harry’s. Harry’s kind of a coward, sometimes. When it comes to his emotions, anyways.”

“It’s not my job to fix this,” Niall responds, just this side of harsh, “I didn’t. I didn’t fuck it up.”

“I’m not saying you did,” Louis clarifies, “I’m just. Maybe Harry needs to hear that. Like. Directly. From you.”

“If he doesn’t know that then—“ Niall cuts himself off abruptly, because it’s not fair to Louis, snapping at him when he’s got nothing to do with this. He draws in another deep breath. 

“Niall.” Louis quietly preempts him. “I’m not saying you should like. Do all the work. I’m just.” 

Louis pauses for a second.

“I’m just saying that. I think maybe you’re the one who’s got the balls to actually take that first step. And. I’m not. I’m not telling you what to do. I just think that. Harry’s not going to.”

“Maybe that’s just indicative of the fact that he doesn’t want this,” Niall observes. The words are sour on his tongue.

Louis touches his shoulder then, just briefly, squeezes hard and lets go.

“Or maybe it’s that he wants it so much that he doesn’t know how to handle it.”

**October**

“Hey.” 

“Mm.”

“Hey.”

“Mmm…?”

“Niall.”

“Shhhh. You’re too loud.”

Niall feels Zayn’s fingers dig a little harder than necessary into his scalp before resuming their light carding through his hair. Zayn’s leg is comfortable under his head and Niall is just on the edge of dozing off.

“Ni, it’s 4 AM. And this is like. The fourth night in two weeks you’ve stayed here.”

“Oh. I can go—“ Niall makes clumsily to get up, but Zayn tugs him back down.

“That’s not what I meant,” he says, feigning exasperation, “I just meant that it makes me think maybe you don’t uh. Sleep as well. Without Harry.”

Niall stiffens a little, tries to sit up again. Zayn keeps him in place. 

“Niall.”

Long pause. 

“...I miss him,” Niall says finally. 

Zayn starts sliding his fingers through his hair again, a silent encouragement to continue.

“Louis. Louis came and talked to me like. Two weeks ago. And he said that he thinks Harry just. Got scared. Or something like that. Because it was. I don’t know. Too good.”

Niall laughs, abruptly, without humor. 

“The illogic of it. And here I thought we were law students.”

Zayn hums quietly.

“We’re logical when it comes to the law,” he observes after a second, “Maybe not so much when it comes to our feelings.”

Niall hears the echo of Harry’s sentiments, way back in 1L year, in Zayn’s words, and it would be easy to dismiss what Harry said almost two years ago. It’s not so easy to dismiss what Zayn’s saying now. 

“What do you think?” he asks, shifting so he can look up at Zayn. Zayn twists his lips a little, the way he sometimes does when he gets called in class and isn’t quite sure of the answer. 

“I think,” he starts, then stops. Looks down at Niall. 

“I think being happy can be really scary, sometimes,” he says, “Especially if. If you’ve spent a lot of time pretending to be happy instead of like. Facing up to the shit you’re dealing with.”

Niall watches him for a moment, catalogs the pensive, almost-but-not-quite sad expression on his face. 

“Did you. I mean. Did you ever pretend?” he asks. Zayn shrugs a little. 

“I think we all do,” he responds, “To an extent. But I think I did, yeah. For awhile. Like, pretending I was okay with my parents not really caring about what I accomplished and whatever and like, acting like I was all secure in who I was, when I had no fucking clue.”

“So you’re speaking from personal experience,” Niall observes quietly. 

Zayn nods.

“And you think that. Harry’s like. Where you were. Before.” 

Zayn nods again. 

Niall sighs.

“I can’t make it any less scary for him. And I can’t, I can’t tell him I understand because. I just. Don’t. I mean, I do. But I don’t.”

Zayn laughs a little.

“Sure there’s a budding lawyer in there?” he asks, tapping Niall’s forehead. Niall swats half-heartedly at him. Zayn grins, pats his chest in apology.

“You don’t get it because. Because you’re way ahead of the rest of us, Ni,” he explains, grin fading into something softer, “You know who you are and you know how to be happy and like. That seems like a weird thing to be good at but. You are. And I envy you that. A lot.”

Niall thinks about all the times in the past two years that he’s been stressed out and snappish at the other boys and frustrated with everything and everyone, and if it was anyone else but Zayn saying this, he’d maybe accuse them of bring drunk. Or high. Or something like that. But when Zayn says stuff like this, it’s generally because he knows what he’s talking about, and he means it.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Niall says with a smile. Zayn laughs again.

“Good,” he says, “Because I don’t know if I could really articulate what I’m trying to say any more than I already have.”

**November**

_Harry Styles: Can we talk after class?_

_Niall Horan: Facebook chat? Really?_

_Harry Styles: I heard that the first step in fixing a problem is admitting you have one so. I’m a coward?_

Niall hates how close he gets to an actual smile before he catches himself. Liam shifts a little next to him. Niall damns these lecture halls that cram them into seats so close that they can read each other’s laptop screens during class. 

_Niall Horan: Okay._

-

They find a table in the corner of the café, more or less sequestered away from everyone else. Harry looks tired and stretched thin, cheekbones more prominent than Niall remembers, mouth set in a thin line. From what Niall has heard, he’s one of the main editors for Law Review, and he’s on the competition team for Moot Court, so he’s doing well in law school parlance. 

But just looking at him, Niall can tell he’s not doing so well in taking care of himself, and he aches a little at the thought. 

“I uhm. I guess I’m not even sure where to start,” Harry says after they sit down, “I wish. I wish I could explain myself but. I’m still not sure that I can.”

Niall waits.

“I. I had never felt like I did. With you,” Harry says haltingly, “Like. Like everything just. You know. Fit. And. And, this sounds really fucking stupid but. That scared me. Like a lot. Like so much that I just like. Needed to get away.”

Harry’s all but wringing his hands, pulling at his fingers, pressing his thumbs into his palms until the skin turns red. Niall feels the urge to reach out and stop him. Tamps it down.

“I was always good at like. Acting like I was happy,” he continues, looking down at the table, “You know, like with Louis. And like. Pretending it doesn’t bother me that my parents are so prejudiced and that, you know, oh yeah, I’m totally okay with like, my career and law school and everything.”

Niall wonders, momentarily, if Zayn is like a psychic or something. Wonders, too, if he maybe owes Louis another massive thank you because Zayn might have been the one who got it through his head, finally, that it was fear, not indifference, that was driving Harry's actions, but Louis was the one who told him first. 

“So, I don’t know. I guess I didn’t know any better, you know? Like. I got so used to pretending that I didn’t know. I didn’t know how to be with you. Too good to be true or some. Some cliched bullshit like that. So yeah.”

Silence. Harry looks out the window, and Niall knows the ball is in his court now, but. 

“What do you want from me, Harry?”

Harry looks back, and his expression is open, almost raw in its honesty. Niall _aches_.

“I want another chance,” he says, no hesitation, “I want. I want _you_. I know I don’t deserve that. But. That’s what I want.”

**December**

“How long has it been, Ni?”

“Three weeks, Zayn. You know that.”

“Yeah.”

Silence. Niall takes a long swig of beer, sets the bottle back down on the bar with a dull thud. Zayn nudges his arm with his own. 

“How long are you gonna make him wait?” he asks. 

Niall looks down at his beer, thinks about Harry’s careful smiles before Advanced Corps, and, in the past week or so, his cautious greetings to go along with them. A few days they all ate lunch together, and it was good, great even, almost like the way it was before. Niall hasn’t laughed like that in a long time.

“You think I’m being too hard on him?” he asks.

Out of the corner of his eye, Niall can see Zayn shrug.

“I think he’s really trying,” Zayn says. 

Niall nods a little. He knows. He knows Zayn’s right, even if he’s being careful not to push Niall in either direction. 

“I want him back,” he admits, “Like. So badly.”

“Then take him back,” Zayn says simply. 

“Ironically, though, I’m scared,” Niall clarifies.

“Then tell him that,” Zayn responds.

Niall looks sideways at him. Zayn raises an eyebrow. 

“You make it sound so easy,” Niall says. 

“Does it have to be difficult?”

Niall doesn’t respond, just reaches for his beer again. Zayn’s phone buzzes to life on the bar, and he picks it up, checks the new text message. 

“Harry just got out of his class,” he says, holding his phone out for Niall to see, “Should I tell him to join us? And by tell him to join “us”, I mean, I tell him to come over and then conveniently disappear before he gets here?”

Niall smiles a little, because maybe Zayn is right, maybe this doesn’t have to be so difficult.

“Yeah,” he says, “You should do that.”

-

Harry shows up fifteen minutes later. 

“That’s funny,” he says, with a half-smile, “Zayn’s not here?”

He’s wearing a scarf. Niall doesn’t really think, just reaches out and snags the loose ends. Tugs Harry in close.

“Just us,” he affirms, and kisses him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhm. I fucked up my knee playing soccer tonight (Something to Be, anyone?). So I am drugged up on painkillers and kind of depressed because I can't play for awhile. So feedback (good, bad, ugly, I'm not picky!) would be wonderful.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't know them, don't own them, don't sue me

**3L Year  
January**

“Nice turtleneck, Niall.”

“Ooh yeah, very classy. Really brings out your eyes.”

Niall gives Louis and Liam an extra long view of his extended middle finger as he takes a seat at their table in the café. 

“Is Harry going to be wearing one as well?” Louis asks, completely unfazed. Niall takes a prim little sip of his coffee and doesn’t answer. Which is basically answer enough. Louis snickers, and Liam smirks, and Niall just rolls his eyes. Next time he won’t even bother trying to hide it. 

Well. _Them_ , he corrects in his mind, remembering his reflection in Harry’s mirror this morning. 

“So. Everyone sign up for the MPRE?” Liam asks, evidently deciding they’ve tormented Niall enough. 

“Ah, shit.” Louis makes a face. “When do I have to do that by?” 

“You’re so professional,” Niall deadpans, “I’m sure they’ll take one look at you on exam day and just pass you.” Louis hits him in the shoulder.

“I’m very professional, I’ll have you know,” he says. Niall snorts, dodges another punch. 

“Where’s loverboy?” Louis asks by way of retaliation. Niall just rolls his eyes.

“He’s got a meeting for his moot court,” he responds, “The poor 2Ls got handed a bitch of a case and Harry wants to at least give them a fighting chance to make the curve.”

“You guys up for dinner on Friday?” Liam asks, “Low brow affair, pizza and beer.”

“Count me in,” Niall replies, “Don’t know about Harry, you’ll have to ask him.”

“Come onnnn,” Louis whines, “Why can’t you guys be all high school and be like one entity and like, attached at the hip? It’s half the work then.”

“…because we’re not in high school?” Niall responds rhetorically, “And relationships tend to work better if you’re not attached at the hip.”

Louis groans and tips over, squashes his face into Liam’s shoulder.

“Save me,” he grumbles, “Niall’s being all mature and shit.”

Niall grins, reaches for his coffee again.

Doesn’t say that, even though he and Harry aren’t attached at the hip, and don’t want to be, he still misses him when they’re apart. 

**February**

“Well this isn’t too clichéd or anything, is it?”

“Mmmm.”

“You’re heavy.”

“Mmm, didn’t hear you complaining a few minutes ago.”

“Not complaining. Just observing.”

Harry makes a vaguely disgruntled noise and shifts so he’s not lying entirely on top of Niall, but their legs are still tangled together under the sheets. 

“Don’t you have class in like…an hour?” Niall asks, glancing sideways at his alarm clock.

“Why do you know my schedule better than I do?” Harry grumbles, playing his fingers absentmindedly along Niall’s collarbone. 

“Someone’s gotta be the responsible one,” Niall replies, yelps a little when Harry pinches his nipple in retaliation. 

A few moments pass. Then Harry leans over, sinks his lips into Niall’s. 

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” he murmurs when he eases back, “I uhm. I’m not sure how you feel about. You know. The “l” word. But.”

Niall blinks, because oh. This isn’t a conversation they’ve had yet. 

“I didn’t want to say it like. In the heat of the moment or whatever,” Harry says, looking down almost sheepishly, “I mean. I love having sex with you but. You know. It’s not. That’s not why I.”

He stops, licks his lips nervously, splays his fingers out across Niall’s stomach. Waits another beat.

“That’s not why I love you.”

Niall takes a deep breath in, lets it out slowly. 

“You don’t. I mean, I don’t expect you to like. Say it back. I don’t want to pressure you,” Harry says, tracing the curve of one of Niall’s ribs with his thumb, “But. You know. Running away from my emotions got me in trouble once, so—“

Niall cuts him off with a deft role reversal, pushing Harry over onto his back and sprawling on top of him. Harry looks uncertain, darting his eyes from Niall’s face to the ceiling and then back again.

“You’re such an idiot sometimes,” Niall chides, ducking down to kiss the corner of his mouth. Harry laughs a little, sounds relieved. 

“But you love me anyways, Mr. Horan?” he asks, teasing. Niall smiles, knows it probably looks goofy and dopey, at least in part because Harry wrung a thoroughly satisfying orgasm out of him not half an hour ago. 

But also because—

“Yeah, Mr. Styles. I love you anyways.”

**March**

“Mr. Horan, can you tell us what’s going on here in Bowers?”

“Uh yeah, sure.”

Niall doesn’t even bother looking down at his laptop for the three sentence summary of the facts he wrote down in his notes last night; American Constitutional Law might still be something of an alien concept to his Irish mind, but the Bowers-Romer-Fisher trilogy is one he would be remiss in not knowing. 

He rattles off the case summary—Georgia law criminalizing sodomy, Supreme Court takes it up as applied to homosexual conduct only, and upholds the law under due process. 

“Great, and Romer?” their Constitutional Law II professor asks when he’s done. 

“Colorado got slapped down for trying to illegalize any laws giving preferences to gays.”

“Okay, in a nutshell, yes. And how would you characterize Justice Scalia’s dissent in Romer?” their professor queries with a slight smile. She’s gay herself, Niall knows, and quite liberal. It’s part of the reason he took this class with her instead of one of the other professors.

A Facebook message window pops up on his laptop screen, and he glances down fractionally at it.

_Harry Styles: Scalia was being a dickhead._

Niall grins before he can stop himself.

“What’s funny, Mr. Horan?” their professor asks, but it’s not harsh, more like she wants to get in on the joke. 

“Uh, well my co-counsel here—“ he tilts a head toward Harry, sitting next to him, “He has a pretty succinct characterization but it’s not entirely appropriate.”

“Mr. Styles?” Their professor is still smiling. She has to know what’s coming. 

Harry doesn’t disappoint.

“Scalia was being a dickhead,” he parrots without hesitation. Their classmates laugh, and even their professor chuckles a little. 

“Apt word choice, Mr. Styles,” she says, to even more laughter, “Care to elaborate?”

Harry obediently launches into an unapologetically derisive recitation of Scalia’s dissent in the Romer case, and Niall watches him with what he hopes isn’t too blatantly unabashed affection. Third year, so the saying goes, they’re supposed to bore you to death, but if this is boredom, he thinks he could get used to it.

**April**

“Oh my g—someone kill Louis please, he’s sleeping! We’re all gonna die!”

“You’re gonna die, Zayn. I have three lives left.”

“Seriously? Someone—Haz, you’re two feet away from him!”

“Liam’s hitting me!” 

“Okay, okay. Sorry, Li.”

“What—hey! HEY!” 

“Boom.”

“I hate you, Zayn.”

“Don’t be a child, Liam. Now, Haz—“

“I know, I know. Kill Louis.”

“You—stay the hell away from me.”

“Ahhhhh—“

On the TV screen in Zayn’s living room, Harry’s dinosaur-shaped video game character and Niall’s round, puffy pink character converge on Louis’ Jigglypuff. A flurry of button mashing and curses, and then Jifflypuff goes flying off the screen. 

“Fuck both of you,” Louis groans, throwing his controller not so gently at Harry.

“You’re such a sore loser,” Harry retorts, shoving him back. Niall takes the opportunity to kick Harry’s character off the screen too, and Harry makes a highly undignified screech, lunges for him. Niall fends him off with a well-aimed grab at his highly ticklish sides, and Harry ends up half-sprawled across both his and Zayn’s laps, grinning and looking extremely pleased with himself. Waggling his eyebrows mischievously, he lifts up a socked foot and tries to poke Zayn’s nose with his big toe. Zayn yelps, shoves him off his lap, and Harry lands on the floor with a gratifying thump.

“I wonder if the Bar knows it’s about to certify five idiots to practice law,” Liam comments to no one in particular. 

“Excuse me, Mr. Payne,” Louis responds, “Kindly do not include me in the same classification as these miscreants.” 

Liam and Zayn both roll their eyes, and Niall snorts at the synchrony. 

“For someone who hates Scalia so much, you sure do sound a lot like him sometimes,” Zayn notes. Harry’s righted himself now, has his elbows resting on his bent knees and his back pressed up against Niall’s legs. 

“Hard to believe we’re graduating in a month, isn’t it?” he asks, glancing around at the rest of them. Niall hums an acknowledgment, and he hears Liam doing the same. 

“Remember when none of us knew each other?” Niall asks after a contemplative silence. 

“Mmm. I try not to,” Louis says, and his voice is light, but his words aren’t, “Life kind of sucked before I knew all of you.”

Zayn nods a little and Liam hums another assent. 

And Harry reaches behind him with one hand, gently encircles Niall’s ankle and strokes a thumb over the bare skin there, a wordless affirmation. 

**May**

“Are you going to wear a tie?”

“…are you?”

“I asked first, Haz.”

Niall pokes his head out of the bathroom of his studio apartment, takes a moment to admire the view, the long lean expanse of Harry’s back where he’s still stretched out on his stomach in Niall’s bed, covers bunched haphazardly around his waist. 

“If you don’t get up in 10 minutes, I’m going to start blasting Justin Bieber,” Niall warns, doing up the last few buttons on his dress shirt. He knows how long Harry takes to get ready in the mornings, and being late to class is one thing, but being late to their law school graduation is entirely another. 

“You’re mean,” Harry grumbles, burying his face in the pillows. Niall rolls his eyes, walks over to his closet and eyes his neckties with undisguised disdain. 

“Tie or no tie?” he asks. 

“No tie,” Harry replies, voice still muffled by the pillows, “Otherwise you might be tempted to strangle yourself with it while the Very Important People are talking about how very important they are.”

Niall laughs a little, abandons the closet and bounds across the room instead, throws himself on top of Harry. He’s probably wrinkling his dress pants and shirt, but he doesn’t really care—they’ll be covered by his robes anyways. 

“Get uuuuup,” he urges, resting his chin on Harry’s shoulder, “You’re not going to have time for breakfast, and then you’re just going to be grumpy all day.”

Harry makes a disgruntled noise. 

“Can’t very well get up with you on top of me like this,” he points out, turning his head so he can rest his cheek on the pillows. Niall obligingly pushes up onto his knees so Harry can roll over, but then—typically—Harry pulls him back down and tries to lick the tip of his nose. 

“No!” Niall says sternly, like he’s talking to a puppy instead of his significant other. Harry just grins up at him. Niall tweaks his nose in retaliation, and Harry’s grin softens a little. Niall should really get up and finish doing his hair and _make_ Harry get out of bed too, but. It’s kind of nice lying here with Harry’s hands on his back and their legs slotted together just so and. Well. Maybe Niall doesn’t have to get up right away. 

“So. I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Harry says after a few moments. Niall raises an eyebrow, and Harry purses his lips a little, darts his eyes away for a second. 

“What uhm. What are your thoughts on. Uhm. Living together?” he asks, stumbling over the words a little. 

Niall doesn’t respond right away. He’s thought about it, sure. But not _thought_ about it. 

“I know it’s like, a big step,” Harry adds, worrying the collar of Niall’s shirt between his fingers, “I’m not. I don’t want to just jump into it, you know? But. Can I ask you to think about it? And. I mean. We can talk more about it like. Once we get settled into our jobs and everything.”

Niall smiles a little, leans down and pecks a kiss to Harry’s mouth. 

“I’ll take it under consideration,” he says, “But. You know. I don’t see it being much of a circuit split or anything.” 

Harry laughs out loud.

“Law school,” he says, shaking his head, “Ruining regular interpersonal communication since Day 1.” 

Niall responds in highly mature fashion by sticking out his tongue and poking Harry in the stomach.

“Right,” he says, rolling off the bed and heading for the bathroom again, “Now get up, or else you’re not getting any tonight, no matter how drunk we get.”

It’s kind of funny how quickly Harry gets out of bed after that.

**Two Years Later**

“Legal Aid South, Niall Horan speaking.”

“Riverside Lofts. $1500 a month. You can practically fall onto like eight different bus routes from the front door.”

“Hi Haz.”

“Want to go take a look after work today? I can pick you up at like 5:30.”

“Jesus, Harry, what time did you go into the office this morning? I know you were gone when I woke up at 7, but seriously?”

“I like getting here early. Much prefer it to staying late. So. 5:30?”

“Sure. What’s this place like?”

“Don’t trust my judgment, Ni?”

“Well, that last place we went—“

“Okay, okay. Admittedly not my best effort but. We didn’t get shot so I’m going to count that as a win.”

“You have strange definitions of winning, Haz.”

“We’re lawyers, remember?”

“…fair point.”

“Okay. So. See you later then. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

-

“Legal Aid South, this is Niall Horan.”

“Liam stole my pen. Can I sue him?”

“Uhm…Louis?”

“Wow, I’m offended, Horan, my voice should be instantly recognizable to you.”

“Yeah, it probably should be, actually. Lou, don’t you have work to do?”

“Well, Liam stole my memo too, because there were some edits on there that didn’t get transferred to his copy but. I’m okay with being deprived of my memo. My pen, not so much.”

“Lou, I’m hanging up now.”

“Your honor, I’d like to plead blatantly ineffective couns—“

-

“Legal Aid South, Niall Horan.”

“Hi, Niall. It’s Liam. Sorry about Louis. You know how he is, and he got kind of a dressing down from one of the senior partners today for something he didn’t even do so I think he just needed to like, distract himself for awhile.”

“That’s okay. Is he taking it okay?”

“Yeah, he’ll be fine. The partner who was giving him a hard time is just an all around—well. He’s very traditional, shall we say? And Louis is, well.”

“Not?”

“Definitely not. So, I mean, whatever, Louis didn’t even have anything to do with it, but this memo landed on the partner’s desk and it was like, really denigrating the state supreme court’s latest ruling in upholding the ban on gay marriage, and the partner immediately thought it was Louis’ doing.”

“Honestly, Liam, how do you guys work in a place like that?”

“Honestly, Ni, I have no idea.”

“Tell Louis I’m sorry I hung up on him.”

“It’s fine. He’s working on a brief now, which is really his thing, he’s got the brain for that stuff so. I think he’ll be fine. How’s Harry, by the way?”

“Good. We’re going to look at another apartment tonight. It’s like a loft or something.”

“Sounds nice. Fingers crossed for you guys.”

“Thanks Li.”

“Of course. I’ll talk to you later, yeah?”

“For sure.”

-

“Legal Aid South, this is Niall Horan speaking.”

“Niall. Need a reference, mate.”

“Hi Zayn. No problem.”

“Got a guy from Sudan sitting in our waiting room. Doesn’t speak much English, but does speak some French. Sounds like he had a visa, but overstayed. Definitely has a fear of return which, I mean. Given what’s going on over there, I’d say is pretty reasonable.”

“Okay. Send him our way. Someone there can give you directions, right?” 

“Yeah, one of the senior associates speaks French.”

“Okay. I’ll get someone working on that.”

“Thanks Ni.”

“Any time.”

“Hey, do you have any plans tonight? Liam and Lou and I just made plans to grab dinner later.”

“Good god, Malik, they’re letting you out of your office? Voluntarily?”

“Foley is surprisingly chilled out about allowing their associates to eat, drink and breathe.”

“I bet. Well. Haz and I are going to look at an apartment so. Drinks afterwards maybe?”

“Fair enough. Tell Haz to get a new phone already, so we can text him.”

“You can text me!”

“Yeah, but you’re such a Luddite, Niall, you don’t even have a data plan.”

“Some of us aren’t making six figure salaries, Mr. Malik-Junior Associate-Esquire-whatever bullshit they call you over there.”

“Fine. Have Harry buy one for you then. He’s probably making more than me, Liam and Louis put together.”

“Graduating at the top of your class will do that for you.”

“Right. Okay, I have to go to a meeting. Good luck apartment hunting, and we’ll see you two later.”

“Thanks, Zayn. Looking forward to it.”

*~*FIN*~*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to get this part done. I don't know why I struggled so much with it. Many many thanks to everyone who left feedback/comments/kudos. <3 It's been a rough past couple of months, so it's been a really nice pick-me-up. :)


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